An example of this kind of page turning apparatus is known to have the following configuration. At a page turning position, a page-turning roller is brought into contact with an upper surface of a page of a booklet which is to be turned, and the page-turning roller is rotated. This causes the page to buckle and deform, and the page flips up above the page-turning roller. Then, the booklet is conveyed in this state, so that the page flipped up above the page-turning roller is brought down and turned.
By the way, a booklet including pages having a high degree of flexural rigidity has recently come along as part of improvement of added values. However, in the above flip-up method with the page-turning roller, it is difficult to turn a page having a high degree of flexural rigidity.
To solve this drawback, a page turning apparatus having upper and lower vacuum pads at a page turning position has been developed so that these vacuum pads turn even a page having a high degree of flexural rigidity.
In other words, the lower vacuum pad sucks and holds a lower surface side of a booklet conveyed to the page turning position so that the lower vacuum pad holds the booklet. Thereafter, the upper vacuum pad sucks and holds the uppermost page of the booklet having a high degree of rigidity, and the vacuum pad moves upward, so that the uppermost page is held upward along a rotational track about a rotational center at a stitch of the booklet. Then, a contact roller moves to a position below the page held upward, and the upper and lower vacuum pads stop sucking/holding the pages. Then, the booklet is sandwiched and conveyed by the contact roller and the conveyor roller, whereby the uppermost page is turned and brought down.
The contact roller has a bladed wheel for striking and separating pages below the uppermost page and held upward together with the uppermost page when the contact roller moves to a position below the uppermost page.
This turning apparatus mainly aims to freely turn pages of a booklet whose cover and some of inner sheets have a high degree of rigidity. Nonetheless, it is to be understood that this turning apparatus can process even a booklet including only flexible pages.
However, in the past, both of upper and lower sucking/holding pads stop sucking/holding the pages at a time. Therefore, not only the booklet but also the pages held upward by the upper sucking/holding pad are conveyed at a time when the booklet is sandwiched and conveyed by the contact roller and the conveyor roller. Therefore, there is a problem in that the bladed wheel comes into contact with the pages held upward and strikes the pages down.